Among the many fascinations of Wimbledon is the choreography of the chorus line. Minor officials at Wimbledon are not encouraged to perform any movement by accident. It gives a curiously North Korean flavour to the place.
It being hot, this week there were sightings of the parasol-wallahs, who shade the gladiators when they sit down at change-of-ends. Like tennis itself, this requires a precise judgment of angles. But these lowly functionaries have little scope to bring their own preferences and style to the job.
Brolly in right hand; left hand behind back; left hand either open or clenched – but there always seemed to be one wallah showing fist and one showing palm. Could there be a designated clencher?
And the ballpersons! They march everywhere, except when they run: teenagers whose sole mission is unobtrusive efficiency. It’s awesome: living proof of my theory that, deep down – very deep down in some cases – kids love rules.
Then there are the line judges: nine of them on the show courts. Plus the chair umpire. (Not counting the dear old net cord judges, who years ago became victims of technology if they were not previously victims of a fatal smack on the head.) Once again, the synchronicity of movements among these put-upon officials, ignored except for their errors, is astonishing. On No 2 Court, during Milos Raonic’s match with John Millman, there were two men behind one baseline who were surely identical twins. Same outfits, same gestures, same half-crouch timed to the microsecond. No such twins, insisted the All England Club. If true, then in some dark cavern they have scientists cloning line judges. Or they are experimenting with robots.
Why go on about all this? Well, the tennis, frankly, has been slow to take wing. In this summer of summers, this should be the Wimbledon of Wimbledons. Not yet. Andy Murray’s absence has been a big downer for the home crowd. The rule of the Big Four, who have dominated the men’s singles for 15 years – and have made each fortnight compelling for a decade – is becoming increasingly ragged.
Women’s tennis is having even worse problems moving on from the Williams sisters. But the new personalities are finding it hard to impose themselves. Wimbledon‑goers still have problems distinguishing one long‑named east European from another.
Scientists are struggling to hold together the creaking body parts of Rafa, Andy and Novak. On court Nadal now sounds increasingly like a steam locomotive in extremis: he is playing from memory, though what a memory it still is. So we have been left with the Federer cult, which has sucked in devotees clever enough to know better and brought forth superfans who follow this Alpine Tendulkar across the globe presenting him with “Love Boxes”. On retirement, he will probably don white robes (with sponsor’s logo) and conduct mass weddings.
There is a story about an ancient Athenian who hated the beloved ruler Aristides the Just. Asked why, he replied: “I’m sick of hearing him called ‘the Just’.” I feel the same about Roger the Perfect. Secretly, many on the tennis circuit harbour similar dark thoughts, finding all that surface charm a mite patronising. Now you know.
And the scheduling has been problematic. Stung by criticism last year, the referee has put more women’s matches on Centre Court. But women’s matches rarely last long. Nor do Federer’s. On Wednesday the list had, predictably, been completed before 6pm – for years the BBC’s Andy prime time – and two unseeded women had to be summoned from a distant corner to plug the gap. They were greeted by a crowd as thin as it was at England’s kick-off time the previous night.
Tennis is perhaps the only field of endeavour where women do not get equal pay for equal work but equal pay for less work: best of three sets, not five. They don’t run 15‑mile marathons, so why not five sets? “It has been tried and physically the women are certainly up to it,” says the tennis eminence (and former Guardian writer) Richard Evans. “But no one wants it, not the women nor the tournaments. The whole sport is going in the other direction. They want to compress the Davis Cup into three sets and play it in a week.”
Twenty20 tennis? “Quite,” says Evans. He believes that Wimbledon will eventually give way and institute a final-set tie-break, which sounds ghastly to me – the abolition of the epic.
Meanwhile, football is hanging over the place like a low-pressure system in a normal summer. No retractable roof can save Wimbledon from this overwhelming thundercloud. Like the monarchy, the All England Club has long been brilliant at discreet pragmatism. This skill has temporarily been lost. Instead it has just sulked. World Cup? It’s not happening, not happening! And certainly not here.
There is a hierarchy in sporting events. Since 2015, Wimbledon, for tennis reasons, has begun a week later. It still coincides with Henley, that other great midsummer social‑cum‑sporting fixture which it has long deprived of the oxygen of publicity. Years ago, before mobiles, a rower had nipped off for a day at the tennis. There was an injury; his crew suddenly needed him. Could Wimbledon put out an emergency call? Certainly not. It took hours for the missing oarsman to be tracked down. He was rushed to the river by train and taxi and made it with moments to spare. Upshot: a heroic victory.
In 1997 there were cricket leagues that refused to cancel fixtures for Diana’s funeral; teams who did so anyway were punished. Similar bloody-mindedness is certain to be widespread this Saturday. More problems will come on Sunday week, when the men’s final is near‑certain to be in progress when the other thing kicks off in Moscow.
Contrary to the surface impression, no one is more obsessed with the England-Sweden result than the All England Club. All England, in this sense, is praying for a Swedish win.
